To enhance NBL research capabilities, there are 3-line operations at NBL as follows.

(1) 1st-line: test operations (O): full-time engineers
(2) 2nd-line: tool development (D): full-time engineers + grad/undergrad students
(3) 3rd-line: technology research (R): professors + post doctors + graduate students

To know the interests of companies and factories, 1st-line faces companies and factories directly. Then, 2nd-line makes 3rd-line’s research results be technical tools. Finally, 1st-line uses these tools to satisfy companies and factories.
Now, in every monthly meeting of 3rd-line, there are 9 professors, 2 post doctors, and 9 graduate students. The list of professors and post doctors can be found in “Address book of NBL Research .” For every graduate student, there are 1 coach and 1-2 senior professors to instruct his/her research topic. A coach is a senior Ph. D. student, a post doctor, or a junior professor. Accordingly, this makes such a strong research power of 3rd-line that we have about 5-8 papers, 2-3 patents and tools every year. More details can be found in “Results .”
There are three main research directions of 3rd-line,

(1) PCAP Lib (a system to collect real traffic packets and a database to store these packets),
(2) ILLT (In-Lab Live Testing, a technology and tools to replay real traffic), and
(3) Traffic diversity & test coverage. The research results of these three directions will be one of papers, patents, tools, or technical reports. Furthermore, all tools will be used by 1st-line and for technology transfers.